The proposed Toxic Algal Culture Core Facility will be located at Florida International University (FLU). This Facilities Core will provide field and laboratory support to the Toxic HAB research project (Brand/Rein), and the HAB Functional Genomics research project (Crawford/Hitchcock) as well as future Pilot Projects and other Oceans and Human Health investigators. Support will be in the form of the following; (1) Sample collection support and shipboard analysis. Continuous-flow bow pump water collection systems will be used to collect samples for flow-through chlorophyll fluorometry and flow cytometry. (2) Isolation of total population DNA from field collected samples for the preparation of 16S and 23S libraries to assess population diversity. (3) Isolation of RNA from field collected samples for gene expression studies. (4) Establishment of uni-algal and axenic (whenever possible) cultures of phytoplankton (dinoflagellates, prymnesiophytes and raphidophyts) by both traditional manual and automated cell-sorting flow cytometry methods. (5) Maintenance of clonal cultures and large scale culturing. (6) Collection of biomass from large scale cultures. (7) Growth of microorganisms under a variety of conditions for gene expression studies.